US looks for clues in shooting of 4 marines
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THE young man who killed four marines in the latest shooting rampage in America had not given authorities any reason to place him under surveillance, the mayor said yesterday.
Chattanooga, Tennessee Mayor Andy Berke spoke as federal and other authorities scrambled to try to determine a motive for Thursday’s shootings at two military facilities in the southern US state.
Three other people were wounded and the shooter died. Authorities have already said they are treating the case as one of “domestic terrorism.”
It was a grimly familiar scenario for Americans — another deadly shooting at a US military installation. Although no motive has been established so far, fuel for fears of so-called “lone wolf” actors — attackers with no known affiliation to an extremist group.
The gunman has been identified as 24-year-old Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, born in Kuwait but naturalized and raised in America.
The Kuwaiti Interior Ministry said while Abdulazeez was in fact born in Kuwait he was of Jordanian origin.
US media reports described him as having had a traditional American upbringing, including participation in school sports teams.
Mayor Berke, speaking on CNN yesterday, was asked whether the man had been on “the radar” of local authorities.
“He was not, as far as we know,” Berke answered. “Much of that information that involves terrorism we get from the federal government. We certainly didn’t have any indication that he was a threat or that yesterday something was going to happen.”
President Barack Obama called the shootings “heartbreaking” and asked Americans to pray for the relatives of the victims.
Bill Killian, the US federal prosecutor in that part of Tennessee, said the shootings were being treated as an “act of domestic terrorism.”
“We are looking at every possible avenue — whether it was terrorism, whether it was domestic, international or whether it was a simple criminal act,” FBI special agent Ed Reinhold said.
“At this point, we don’t have anything that directly ties him to an international terrorist organization,” Reinhold said.
So far there has not been any indication that anyone else was involved in the shooting.
Abdulazeez, a Muslim, lived in a leafy suburb of Chattanooga.
The attack came just before the Eid al-Fitr holiday at the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan. He graduated from the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga with a degree in engineering.
A woman who attended Red Bank High School with him said he was a quiet kid and well-liked. “He was friendly, funny, kind,” Kagan Wagner told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “I never would have thought it would be him.”
Scott Schrader, who coached Abdulazeez in mixed martial arts, told CNN he “seemed like the all-American kid.”
In an apparent blog post written on Monday, Abdulazeez said Muslims should not let “the opportunity to submit to Allah ... pass you by,” according to the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors extremist activity on social media.
Investigators said Abdulazeez fired from inside his car at the recruitment center before moving to the reserve center, leaving his car and opening fire. They said an autopsy will be conducted to determine how Abdulazeez died.
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